AG Luther Strange: Case on Stephen Nodine needed a lift

Attorney General Luther Strange said he took over the homicide prosecution of Stephen Nodine, left, after his office was contacted by the family of the victim, Angel Downs, right.

BALDWIN COUNTY, Alabama -- Attorney General Luther Strange said he took over the Stephen Nodine homicide prosecution after the victim’s family contacted his office, but he sought to downplay the appearance of a rift with local prosecutors.

Strange, elected attorney general last year, said he is not familiar with all details of the case, in which the former Mobile County commissioner stands accused of causing the shooting death of his longtime girlfriend Angel Downs. Strange said he has not met with the Downs family.

But he did say that it appeared the case had been “lingering” and could benefit from a “fresh set of eyes.”

Strange said he consulted with Baldwin County Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack Jr., District Attorney Hallie Dixon and other law enforcement officials before suggesting former Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone as a special prosecutor.

“It just became apparent to me that, you know, that this case needed to move forward, that it was in the interests of everybody to find the right person to try to the case,” he said. “I said, ‘If everybody’s happy with that, it seems like the perfect case for us to come in and help them.’”

Strange said it was not a hostile takeover.

“Everybody seemed to be happy with this approach,” he said.

He said that he is not taking the case from Dixon. “We’ve agreed to work together on it. She’s going to help us to the extent she can,” Strange said.

Dixon electronically filed a letter to Strange’s office Saturday afternoon through Baldwin County Circuit Court telling the attorney general that her office welcomed his involvement. The letter said her office was in the process of “copying the voluminous file and provided some initial core documents to your representatives.”

Dixie had the option of asking the attorney general for help at any point.

Both Strange and Dixon assumed their elected offices in January this year, after being swept into office by voters in 2010.

Dixon conducted a long review of the case, which had been prosecuted by her predecessor and had resulted in a deadlocked jury.

Dixon ultimately decided to take the case back to a grand jury and obtained a new indictment charging Nodine with criminally negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, in Downs’ death in May 2010.

“To me, it sounds like a disagreement between local officials and the attorney general over the strength of the evidence,” said John Carroll, the dean of Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham. “Those things happen.”

Nodine’s lawyers have contended that their client is the victim of politics. Strange said that he appointed Whetstone to try the case in part to diffuse such concerns. Strange pointed out that Whetstone is not running for any political office.

He could have assigned a career prosecutor from his office to try the case, but he said he trusts Whetstone’s judgment. He said that the former Baldwin district attorney is well-respected in the courthouse.

“There’s no more experienced guy in the state,” Strange said. “He’s the best guy available. He’s fantastic.”

Defense lawyer John Beck said the case “stinks of politics” and has done so since the beginning.

“Politics are completely irrelevant to the defense of Mr. Nodine,” Beck said. “Anytime politics gets injected into a case, it damages the integrity of the entire proceedings.

"Unfortunately, it seems politics have been at the cornerstone of the entire proceedings.”

Under state law, the attorney general has the authority to take over any case from a district attorney for any reason. Such intervention, however, may provoke a backlash.

Strange’s predecessor, Troy King, raised the ire of district attorneys statewide by taking control of cases, including a capital murder case in Mobile County against suspected serial killer Jeremy Jones.

Some district attorneys endorsed Strange for that reason.

Strange promised in May of last year that he would restore cooperation with district attorneys, who “often face turf wars when Mr. King tries to grandstand for the television cameras.”

Last week, Strange rejected any comparison to King’s approach.

“This is not that at all,” he said. “This is a mutually agreed upon, everybody’s-happy-with-this-result type of case.”

Randall Hillman, the executive director of the Office of Prosecution Services and the Alabama District Attorneys Association, said the climate today is much better for district attorneys.

“There’s no question our relationship with the attorney general is light years ahead of the previous attorney general,” he said. “He wants to work with us because he realizes that in 99.9 percent of the cases, we are the boots on the ground.”

According to officials at the Attorney General’s Office, Strange has taken over only one other case — an electronic bingo investigation in Greene County. Strange said that action came following a discussion with the district attorney in that area.

Strange would not dismiss the possibility that he might take charge of a case in the face of opposition from a district attorney, but he said it would be rare.